Gold, Guns and Ghosts

A true story of how my family worked a ouija board - and how it directed us to 3 chests of gold coins, gold bullion, land grants, and flint lock pistols... buried by Juan Bautista de las Casas in January 1811... 20 miles due west of the Alamo... in San Antonio Texas.

There IS more to life than we understand. This is all true. I swear to God.

How it all started...

memories of my 13th year...

In 1975, my Dad, (a dental tech, purple heart and bronze star vet) was renting a house, but looking for a house to buy. We'd looked at several properties in Central Texas. One in Bulverde, one in Boerne, and the other out Potranco Road. Anyway, that was the talk around the dinner table, and the reason for our weekend drives... we were looking for a house to buy.

For some reason, which I may never understand (well, it was the 1970's!) my folks decided to ask the Ouija Board what to do.

So, my Dad and my sister in law sat down and used "the board" in the "normal way" - they sat in chairs facing each other, knees touching, board on their laps, and all fingertips on the pointer. - and it started moving.. and man was it moving... My step mom got a pad of paper out and wrote down each letter, as my Dad would call them out.

Then "we asked" are you talking about the hill we looked at? The planchette (pointer) quickly, and forcefully moved to YES.

We had NO clue who "Juan Casas" was.

I was only 13 at the time, but I remember freaking out about the whole experience... Who was Juan Casas? The first day at the school library, I found nothing... but the second day, I checked out the largest almanac on Texas history I had ever seen, and started with the date January 1st, 1811. January 2nd, January 3rd, I got to January 22nd, 1811, and read the following... Juan Bautista de las Casas marched into San Antonio January 22nd, 1811, and arrested the Governors and appointed himself Governor". I started shaking.

In short, (I could add a lot more weird stuff here) we bought "The Hill".

Once settled into the house, we started "working the board" on a regular basis. I now have a stack of "writings" about an inch thick.

1975 to 1977 was when we were working the board the most. I personally never worked it. 99% of the time it was my Dad and (interestingly) epileptic sister in law who worked the board. I was just a witness.

During that time, the board spelled out about the treasure... 3 chests of gold coins and bullion, land grants, other papers, bags of coins, and flint lock pistols. It was buried 8 feet deep by Oscar Thomas Shultz (geneology needed) was forced to dig the hole then he was shot and put with it to make it look like a grave,

Through the years the board repeatedly talked about 2 things. The treasure buried in 1811 by Juan Casas, but it also "talked" about underground rooms, a shaft, and tunnels in the Hill - 2000 years old.

This was a particularly amazing session...

Massive trullo - not near as small forms of Italy - basically from style of undershelters made of stone and patchwork designed by earliest masons - massive trullo not near as small as found in Italy - built early AD cliffside underground stone dwellings - these found varied in depth and were much smaller - Edward Allen has in depth book early stone shelters - Italy trulli and trullos - have square stone covering entrance flush to ground - nontranslinear - illustrations in book - shaft straight down - big room built with fireplace for cooking and warmth - straight down shaft walls nontranslinear to caves will same patch find - down simple path left for u - dig where simple sign was left for u - to get out simply side of slab otherwise may fall to bottom - u fall - potash all around slab - not completely factual to these indians but close - nontranslinear - watch closely will draw - follow closely piramid shaped chimney with stone

At this point the planchette began moving in a peculiar way, as if it was trying to draw something. So we followed that movement and drew this... (this is the actual session!)

Well, we had NO IDEA what a TRULLO was, who Edward Allen was, or if a book called Early Stone Shelters even existed!

We called the book store the following Monday morning (pre-internet!) and asked "do you have a book called Early Stone Shelters by Edward Allen?". The response was "there is a book called Stone Shelters by Edward Allen, would you like us to order it for you"? Of course we said yes!

The book two weeks to arrive... I was the first one to pick up the book at the counter... , and again, shaking, I opened it. This is the VERY FIRST page I opened to... a line drawing very similar to what the board "drew" 2 weeks earlier - A FRIGGEN TRULLO!

I can not comprehend how The Board spelled out all that, drew that, and the very first page I opened to was a trullo - very similar to our drawing. I guess it will always boggle my mind. That was just impossible.

The board spelled "nontranslinear" three times. (amazing by itself!) It is interesting to note the word "nonrectilinear" appears in the caption of that page. (I didn't even realize that until a few years ago) $%$#!@!

So What Happened?

I spent 19 years searching for the burial sites... from 1975 to 1994... most of my teens and all of my 20's! I BELIEVED the writings. Every time I tried to verify the information, it seemed true.

No one besides a handful of useless sibings, my DAD, Sheryl, and Judy believed. (I love all my ssiblings but in this instance, they were all useless) At least they didn't think I was crazy!

I used everything I could get my hands on... metal detectors of all kinds, dowsing, digging (by hand!) in various places... I even used ground penetrating radar (20 feet from where I eventually located the burials! Grrr!)

I finally located the burial sites (shown below) by taking a series of low altitude aerial near infrared photos (laying in the belly of a Cessna 172), in the spring of 1994. I spent the better part of 1994 analyzing these photos.

There are 3 main burials, exactly where the ouija board told us... in the direction of sun leaving, just past the cedar trees. (evergreens show in nred)

Now The Bad News.

After 19 years of working the board, obsessing over the writings, detecting, digging, researching, and finally locating the fort and the burials - I made the biggest mistake in a thousand lifetimes.

I tried to do things legally and ethically... I tried to get permission from the land owner, and the help of the University of Texas. In those efforts, unfortunately, I showed the burials, in context, to my "attorney".

Shortly after showing my infrared photos to him, someone crashed through a fence on a nearby highway, drove up to the burials shown on my infrareds, obviously using locating equipment far better than mine, found it and dug the chests up.

20 years of absolutely magical experiences, all up in smoke in an instant.

END THE COVER UP DUDES. PAY ME MY DUE. I WILL NOT SHUT UP. I HAVE DNA FROM THE BIG RED CAN - SHOW ME THE LAND GRANTS AND OTHER PAPERS THAT WERE BURIED WITH IT. SHOW ME THE PICTURES. MF'rs. YOU STOLE MORE THAN TREASURE - YOU STOLE HISTORY - YOU STOLE A MAN'S LIFE'S WORK AND YOU STOLE AN INCREDIBLE STORY - BASTARD THIEVES.

I will NEVER forgive myself for it. Texas lost a MAJOR treasure and a HUGE part of their history. (and I lost my life's work!) If I had had a gun in my hand the day I saw the freshly dug dirt, I would not be writing this. Who knows - I might not be reading this soon!

You can see the fresh digging in this 1995 Google Earth image.... maybe I was standing right there in disbelief when this picture was taken. Almost all of these ouija board sessions occurred IN THAT HOUSE. I walked on top of the burials hundreds of times. No one else had been in there from 1974, when we moved in, until the day the site was looted...

In an effort to get people to talk - I set up TreasureNet.com. This is the very early days of the WWW. It quickly became, and remains the most popular treasure hunting site on the net.

I eventually DID talk to someone who confirmed my greatest fears. A long time employee of "Treasure Salvors", (who the atty represents) said "well Marc, I was just a fly on the wall when it came in, but when things like those guns are found, they are usually not found alone". He wouldn't go into further detail, but made clear to me that, yes, the attorney and company looted the site.

An interesting fact: I sold "TreasureNet" a few years ago, and ONE post, posted in 1995, out of 2 million posts - was immediately removed from the site - THIS POST!

Evidence

Not long after the site was looted, I would say mid-late 1995 - maybe later - I found these guns for sale online - without any provenance, and way too cheaply priced....

When I first saw these, I immediately had a gut feeling they came from my site, and I myself, don't feel I am very psychic! I could literally smell the dirt on the Hill and in a really weird way I recognized them all. (for what that's worth)

So, I called this place up, a site called richestreasures.com, out of sebastian Florida, owned by& Richard VanZyl, (who I found out just last week - Oct., 2016 was the captain of Mel Fisher's dive boat!) and confronted them... I asked if the guns came from Texas, and the guy said "it's possible". My gut sank. I came pretty unglued with them. It is NOT a coincidence, that this website was completely removed within a day or two of me confronting them!

I also confronted the attorney, shortly after the looting took place, and his exact words were "I'm sorry". "Maybe there's more there". His wife's exact words when confronted were "Well Marc, all I can tell you, is that when there's a lot of money involved, people do strange things". These are not words people say when you are accusing them of stealing your life's work!

Consolations

One of the side benefits of my search was locating a Spanish Colonial fort site... just a couple hundred feet from the burials... I found a dropped musket ball at the door of this building as well as small pieces of iron...

The heads of square nails.

One of the more telling artifacts found at the site was this Spanish Colonial "Beak Point" knife...

Thoughts About Texas History

Through my research, I learned how the Battle of the Alamo was merely the end of a 25 year process of Spanish loss of control of Texas.

What Texans need to ask themselves is "why were "Texians" defending the Alamo in the first place?" In 1810 it was defended by Spanish soldiers.

The answer to that question is the Hidalgo revolution of 1810-1811... It began with "El Grito" (Cry For Freedom) of Father Hidalgo, and a subsequent revolutionary raid on the treasury of Guanajuato Mexico in September of 1810, and the "Casas Revolution" which started January 22nd, 1811.

Juan Casas was commissioned (given treasure) stolen in the raid at Guanajuato in December of 1810 by Hidalgo. Casas was eventually overthrown and tried for treason... he was executed in Monclova Mexico, August 3rd, 1811, and his head was shipped back to San Antonio and put on a pole to deter others with similar motives. He never directly revealed the location of his treasure. Although if someone finds out what he told the priest shortly before he was executed, I predict we will learn that he did tell the priest about it.

After this debacle, the Spanish Crown lost confidence in the security of Texas, and it's capital San Antonio.

Jose Antonio Navarro, a resident of San Antonio was 16 years old in 1811.. meaning he was 41 at the time of the battle of the Alamo. He was THERE. In his own words he says "forget the Battle of the Alamo" the real event in Texas history occurred January 22nd, 1811... prior to that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of pesos were being shipped into San Antonio EVERY month to pay the troops. After the Hidalgo-Casas revolution, that money stopped.

That is why "Texians" "defended" the Alamo.

Perhaps now it's time for someone else to uncover the underground shelters. I KNOW there are rooms and tunnels on The Hill. I have seen too much to not believe this - one of the main thrusts of what The Board "said". The rooms are there. Although they could have been looted in recent years... the rooms are there. Anyone up for an adventure?

Here's a quick video of my search for the shelters - near the top of The Hill... it begins by showing a cache of tools I found in the mixed up dirt you will see... for the record - all those rocks strewn about, outside the hole, were already there. Evidence of past occupation for sure.

Several Ouija Board passages have haunted me over these 45 years.

When I was 18, I took some aptitude tests to join the Navy. I scored in the top 6%. When the recruiter talked to me, he said "wow - I haven't seen this assignment in a long time - you are being offered the AX position" (I would've been flying on AWAX planes hunting submarines.) I have those papers, and those dates. I also have all the writings - and they are were also dated - as they happened.

Years later I was going through the writings, and found the passage "time good now for Marc to get what he wants while on job at arms will be called aerotec laugh now but will be given the opportunity and do not blow it".

Apparently I was not at that session, because I had no memory of that passage - but there it is - in the writings and dated.... anyway, I thought to myself about my navy tests and wondered, could that have been around the same time?

That Ouija Board session was ONE WEEK BEFORE I TOOK MY TESTS! there was no reason for the board to say that except for it's pure prophecy. I had ZERO interests in electronics at the time...

I will write more about other prophecies that have yet to take place. I wouldn't want to be living in San Antonio right now... that I know.

In other sessions, writing about the Casas treasure, it spelled out (paraphrasing a little) "was for the people of spain not sent another to overcome as viceroy" "Diaz became hard handed with indians to work in mines that were theirs anyway" "oscar thomas shultz I dug it and was put with it save my soul by finding me" "the texians were up in arms to get treasure as well" "down simple path left for you"

...and ultimately it was - from the day we moved in, until the day it was all lost, there was always a mysterial trail leading from the house to the burials ... wtf.

Regrets

Frankly, I am more disturbed about these experiences than ever before. And to lose it all for trying to do the right thing is a punishment I may never understand.

One of the more difficult aspects of my search was - All throughout those 19 years, I wanted to talk about my search, I was amazed by the whole thing - but I knew if I did, people would think I am crazy... and they did in droves. I understood that reasoning!

Unfortunately, I found it, and then I fooleshly gave it away... which reminds me of other words the board spelled...

It is one thing to dig all over and find nothing but when something is really found words can not said to many less you want every one of his friends here

I fucked up.

HOW THE HELL DID ALL THAT HAPPEN?

Marcmarc [at] neuz dot com

p.s., 1. In the Bible of Texas treasures, Coronado's Children by J. Frank Dobie, in the chapter "Down The Nueces" there's a story about "Loma Alta". My best guess as to the "Drummond" Dobie mentions; it's this guy...

2. On the south east slope of Loma Alta there is a large hole - probably 50' x 50' and 8' deep. It is my opinion that this hole was dug as early as the 18teens to 1835... in search of the treasure. Probably based on conversations Casas had with the first priest,.. just before his execution... in Monclova Mexico. This hole is on the exact opposite side of The Hill as the burials.

Somewhere in this contemporary, documentary video it shows 3 chests of gold... and this statement "the revolutionaries retreated to San Antonio".Ever since, I have felt like I have been set afire. For what it's worth.

Marc's Memoirs - a place subject to random additions, with no literary grace, but holding profound implications for all of us. This is all true. I swear to God.

I have seen some things that should convince me - there IS "another side" My family had long conversations with "them".

In 1975, my Dad, (a dental tech, purple heart and bronze star vet) was renting a house, but looking for a house to buy. We'd looked at several properties in Central Texas. One in Bulverde, one in Boerne, and another on a high hill in the Hill Country. That was the talk around the dinner table, and the reason for our weekend drives... we were looking for a house. For some reason, which I may never understand (well, it was the 1970's!) my folks decided to ask the Ouija Board what to do.

So, my Dad and my sister in law sat down and used "the board" in the normal way - they sat in chairs facing each other, knees touching, board on their laps, and all fingertips on the pointer. - and it started moving.. and man was it moving... My step mom got a pad of paper out and wrote down each letter, as my Dad would call them out. Here are the actual words from that first session...

Then "we asked" are you talking about the hill we looked at? The planchette (pointer) quickly, and forcefully moved to YES.

We had no idea who "Juan Casas" was.

I remember that session was on a Friday or Saturday... I was only 13 at the time, but I remember almost freaking out - I NEEDED to go to the school library! It was a long wait until school opened on Monday! Who was Juan Casas? The first day at the school library, I found nothing... but the second day, I checked out the largest almanac on Texas history I had ever seen, and started with the date January 1st, 1811. January 2nd, January 3rd, I got to January 22nd, 1811, and read the following... Juan Baptista de las Casas marched into San Antonio January 22nd, 1811, and arrested the Governors and appointed himself Governor".

Once settled into the house, we started "working the board" on a regular basis. I now have a stack of "writings" about an inch thick.

1975 to 1977 was when we were working the board the most. I personally never worked it. 99% of the time it was my Dad and (interestingly) epileptic sister in law who worked the board. I was just a witness.

During that time, the board went into pretty great detail about the treasure... 3 chests of gold coins and bullion, land grants, other papers, bags of coins, and flint lock pistols.

Through the years the board repeatedly talked about 2 things. The treasure buried in 1811 by Juan Casas, but it also "talked"f about underground rooms, a shaft, and tunnels in the Hill 2000 years old.

This was a particularly amazing session...

Massive trullo - not near as small forms of Italy - basically from style of undershelters made of stone and patchwork designed by earliest masons - massive trullo not near as small as found in Italy - built early AD cliffside underground stone dwellings - these found varied in depth and were much smaller - Edward Allen has in depth book early stone shelters - Italy trulli and trullos - have square stone covering entrance flush to ground - nontranslinear - illustrations in book - shaft straight down - big room built with fireplace for cooking and warmth - straight down shaft walls nontranslinear to caves will same patch find - down simple path left for u - dig where simple sign was left for u - to get out simply side of slab otherwise may fall to bottom - u fall - potash all around slab - not completely factual to these indians but close - nontranslinear - watch closely will draw - follow closely piramid shaped chimney with stone

At this point the planchette began moving in a peculiar way, as if it was trying to draw something. So we followed that movement and drew this... (this is the actual session!)

Well, we had NO IDEA what a TRULLO was, who Edward Allen was, or if a book called Early Stone Shelters even existed!. So, we called the book store and asked "do you have a book called Early Stone Shelters by Edward Allen?". The response was "there is a book called Stone Shelters by Edward Allen, would you like us to order it for you"? Of course we said yes!

The book two weeks to arrive... I was the first one to pick up the book at the counter... , and again, shaking, I opened it. This is the VERY FIRST page I opened to... a line drawing very similar to what the board "drew" 2 weeks earlier - A TRULLO!

I can not comprehend how The Board spelled out all that, drew that, and the very first page I opened to was a trullo - very similar to our drawing. I guess it will always boggle my mind. That was just impossible.

The board spelled "nontranslinear" three times. (amazing by itself! It is interesting to note the word "nonrectilinear" appears in the caption of that page. (I didn't even realize that until a few years ago) $%$#!@!

Perhaps now it's time for someone else to uncover the underground shelters. I KNOW there are rooms and tunnels on The Hill. I have seen too much to not believe this - one of the main thrusts of what The Board "said". The rooms are there. Although they could have been looted in recent years... the rooms are there. Anyone up for an adventure?

Several Ouija Board passages have haunted me over these 45 years.

When I was 18, I took some aptitude tests to join the Navy. I scored in the top 6%. When the recruiter talked to me, he said "wow - I haven't seen this assignment in a long time - you are being offered the AX position". I( would've been flying on AWAX planes hunting submarines.) I have those papers, and those dates. I also have all the writings - and they are were also dated - as they happened.

Years later I was going through the writings, and found the passage "time good now for Marc to get what he wants while on job at arms will be called aerotec laugh now but will be given the opportunity and do not blow it".

Apparently I was not at that session, because I had no memory of that passage - but there it is - in the writings and dated.... anyway, I thought to myself about my navy tests and wondered, could that have been around the same time?

That Ouija Board session was ONE WEEK BEFORE I TOOK MY TESTS! there was no reason for the board to say that except for it's pure prophecy. I had ZERO interests in electronics at the time...

I will write more about other prophecies that have yet to take place. I wouldn't want to be living in San Antonio right now... that I know.

In other sessions, writing about the Casas treasure, it spelled out (paraphrasing a little) "was for the people of spain not sent another to overcome as viceroy" "Diaz became hard handed with indians to work in mines that were theirs anyway" "oscar thomas shultz I dug it and was put with it save my soul by finding me" "the texians were up in arms to get treasure as well" "down simple path left for you" (and ultimately it was - always a mysterial trail leading from the house to the burials!) "

So What Happened?

I spent 19 YEARS searching for the burial sites... from 1975 to 1994. I used everything I could get my hands on... metal detectors of all kinds, dowsing, digging (by hand!) in various places... I even used ground penetrating radar (20 feet from where I eventually located the burials! Grrr!)

I finally located the burial sites (shown below) by taking a series of low altitude aerial near infrared photos (laying in the belly of a Cessna 172), in the spring of 1994. I spent the better part of 1994 analyzing these photos.

Now The Bad News.

After 19 years of working the board, obsessing over the writings, detecting, digging, researching, and finally locating the fort and the burials by laying in the belly of a small plane and taking and analyzing infrared photos, I made the biggest mistake in a thousand lifetimes.

I tried to do things legally and ethically... I tried to get permission from the land owner, and the help of the University of Texas. In those efforts, unfortunately, I showed the burials, in context to my "attorney".

Shortly after showing my infrared photos to him, someone crashed through a fence on a nearby highway, drove up to the burials shown on my infrareds, obviously using locating equipment far better than mine, found it and dug the chests up.

20 years of absolutely magical experiences, all up in smoke in an instant.

END THE COVER UP DUDES. PAY ME MY DUE. I WILL NOT SHUT UP. I HAVE DNA FROM THE BIG RED CAN - SHOW ME THE LAND GRANTS AND OTHER PAPERS THAT WERE BURIED WITH IT. SHOW ME THE PICTURES. MF'rs. YOU STOLE MORE THAN TREASURE - YOU STOLE HISTORY - YOU STOLE A MAN'S LIFE'S WORK AND YOU STOLE AN INCREDIBLE STORY - BASTARD THIEVES.

I will NEVER forgive myself for it. I am very damaged, emotionally, and mentally, not to mention financially, because of it. I can not get these experiences out of my head. Texas lost a MAJOR treasure and a HUGE part of their history. (and I lost my life's work!) If I had had a gun in my hand the day I saw the freshly dug dirt, I would not be writing this. Who knows - I might not be reading this soon!

You can see the fresh digging in this 1995 Google Earth image.... maybe I was standing right there in disbelief when this picture was taken. Almost all of these ouija board sessions occurred IN THAT HOUSE. I walked on top of the burials hundreds of times. No one else had been in there from 1974, when we moved in, until the day the site was looted...

In an effort to get people to talk - I set up TreasureNet.com. This is the very early days of the WWW. It quickly became, and remains the most popular treasure hunting site on the net.

I eventually DID talk to someone who confirmed my greatest fears. A long time employee of "Treasure Salvors", (who the atty represents) said "well Marc, I was just a fly on the wall when it came in, but when things like those guns are found, they are usually not found alone". He wouldn't go into further detail, but made clear to me that, yes, the attorney and company looted the site.

An interesting fact: I sold "TreasureNet" a few years ago, and ONE post, posted in 1995, out of 2 million posts - was immediately removed from the site - THIS POST!

Evidence

Not long after the site was looted, I would say mid-late 1995 - maybe later - I found these guns for sale online - without any provenance, and way too cheaply priced....

When I first saw these, I immediately had a gut feeling they came from my site, and I myself, don't feel I am very psychic! I could literally smell the dirt on the Hill and in a really weird way I recognized them all. (for what that's worth)

So, I called this place up, a site called richestreasures.com, out of sebastian Florida, owned by& Richard VanZyl, (who I found out just last week - Oct., 2016 was the captain of Mel Fisher's dive boat!) and confronted them... I asked if the guns came from Texas, and the guy said "it's possible". My gut sank. I came pretty unglued with them. It is NOT a coincidence, that this website was completely removed within a day or two of me confronting them!

I also confronted the attorney, shortly after the looting took place, and his exact words were "I'm sorry". "Maybe there's more there". His wife's exact words when confronted were "Well Marc, all I can tell you, is that when there's a lot of money involved, people do strange things". These are not words people say when you are accusing them of stealing your life's work!

Consolations

One of the side benefits of my search was locating a Spanish Colonial fort site... just a couple hundred feet from the burials... I found a dropped musket ball at the door of this building as well as small pieces of iron...

The heads of square nails.

One of the more telling artifacts found at the site was this Spanish Colonial "Beak Point" knife...

Thoughts About Texas History

Through my research, I learned how the Battle of the Alamo was merely the end of a 25 year process of Spanish loss of control of Texas.

What Texans need to ask themselves is "why were "Texians" defending the Alamo in the first place?" In 1810 it was defended by Spanish soldiers.

The answer to that question is the Hidalgo revolution of 1810-1811... It began with "El Grito" (Cry For Freedom) of Father Hidalgo, and a subsequent revolutionary raid on the treasury of Guanajuato Mexico in September of 1810, and the "Casas Revolution" which started January 22nd, 1811.

Juan Casas was commissioned (given treasure) stolen in the raid at Guanajuato in December of 1810 by Hidalgo. Casas was eventually overthrown and tried for treason... he was executed in Monclova Mexico, August 3rd, 1811, and his head was shipped back to San Antonio and put on a pole to deter others with similar motives. He never directly revealed the location of his treasure. Although if someone finds out what he told the priest shortly before he was executed, I predict we will learn that he did tell the priest about it.

After this debacle, the Spanish Crown lost confidence in the security of Texas, and it's capital San Antonio.

Jose Antonio Navarro, a resident of San Antonio was 16 years old in 1811.. meaning he was 41 at the time of the battle of the Alamo. He was THERE. In his own words he says "forget the Battle of the Alamo" the real event in Texas history occurred January 22nd, 1811... prior to that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of pesos were being shipped into San Antonio EVERY month to pay the troops. After the Hidalgo-Casas revolution, that money stopped.

That is why "Texians" "defended" the Alamo.

Regrets

Frankly, I am more disturbed about these experiences than ever before. And to lose it all for trying to do the right thing is a punishment I may never understand.

Somewhere in this contemporary, documentary video it shows 3 chests of gold... and this statement "the revolutionaries retreated to San Antonio". Ever since, I have felt like I have been set afire. For what it's worth.